One Outcast to Another
by nutella4ever
Summary: Kate reminisces about some things in the past and ponders how things have turned out. Set after Season Six. One-shot.


**Bear in mind that I've only seen up to Season Three and while I know the basics of what will happen, I only have the bare bones. **

**I love these two together, and I also wanted to experiment with a different writing style. Please review! :)**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Lost. Though I wish I did.**

* * *

It's a normal Wednesday afternoon. It's not sunny, nor is the sky completely overcast. Clouds move lazily across the sky, as though as they don't have a care in the world. And they don't. They're clouds, after all.

Kate stands at the kitchen counter, her curly hair caught up in a ponytail, a mixing bowl in front of her. A carton of eggs lies to her right. She can hear the sounds of the city drifting up through the open window in front of the kitchen sink. Horns blare, and people's voices merge together to create an unintelligible mass of noise. The noise swells and washes over Kate and she lets it, lets it replace her thoughts.

She's in a strange mood today, and she can't quite figure out why. It's a completely normal day. There's nowhere in particular she has to go, nothing in particular she has to do. Maybe that's the problem. It's been over a year since her final departure from the island that was a constant presence in her thoughts and in her mind for the last few years. It was almost like another person, that entered her life that fateful day, the day Oceanic flight 815 crashed. It did seem to have its own personality, almost like it really was a living being. She definitely was not sorry to leave, to leave it all behind. But it was strange to be back in the 'real' world.

Kate smiles wryly to herself as she remembers that she said almost exactly the same thing, years ago, after her return to the beach where the rest of the survivors lived, with Jack in tow. She said it was strange being back, not looking for a way out of a cage, and not finding a reason to go running off into the jungle. She joked that she almost didn't know what to do with herself. Aside from washing the dishes… in the ocean.

Kate's big, dangerous adventure for today was making carrot cake, hence the mixing bowl and the eggs. She was even wearing an apron. She thinks about the days when the played at being a housewife, back when she was married to Kevin. She wore aprons, baked cakes, cooked dinner every night, dressed in pastels and even had a housewife-y haircut. Kate's smile fades from her face as she remembers what she did to Kevin, how she must have hurt him. 'Monica' was just another of her characters, the one who Kevin happened to love. Maybe Monica was honest and sweet; all the things Kevin had said she was during the wedding. The truth of the matter was that Monica just wasn't real, and Kevin could never have loved Kate. He was a good man through and through, a man of morals and the law.

Kate hopes he is happy now. If anyone deserved to be happy, it was him. Even Kate herself is happy enough now. Sure, sometimes she feels restless, and sometimes she wakes up during the night, sweating and screaming. Mainly, she's just grateful for everything she has.

She has someone to wipe her tears from her cheeks and whisper soothing words to her after one of her bad dreams. She has someone to scold about leaving the toilet seat up and to complain to about her bruised tailbone. Someone to argue with about stupid things, instead of who gets to go into the jungle on a rescue mission to save yet another person from yet another menace.

Kate shakes her head, pushes a few wisps of hair behind her ear and attempts to focus. She cracks three eggs into the large plastic bowl that has been sitting idly in front of her for some time now. She adds sugar and whisks them together for several minutes. Instead of letting her mind wander again she stares into the bowl, watching the mixture thicken and observes the patterns the electric whisk makes on the surface. The noise of the appliance soothes her; it's a familiar sound, a homely sound. Adding the oil, the flour, spices, pecans and grated carrot makes Kate's lips turn up at the corners again. Who'd have thought that the hardened criminal who had deceived countless people would find such joy in baking? Kate can almost hear the kitchen jokes that would be articulated in a certain Southern drawl. Almost as though Kate had conjured him by thinking about his voice, the door of the apartment opens and closes with a soft click. The lock chinkles and heavy boots make their way towards where Kate stands waiting.

Sawyer. Back from the day job. Or the night job, if one was to get technical. Kate realises that the afternoon has worn on pretty quickly as she's been reminiscing, the sky outside having gotten slightly darker. Choosing to continue mixing her batter instead of looking up, Kate simply leans her head to the side when Sawyer comes to a halt beside her, placing his hand casually on her shoulder. She brushes her cheek against the back of his hand. She loves his hands, they're rough and calloused yet capable of surprising gentleness. She loves the way he touches her, the simple brush of his hand against the small of her back, the nape of her neck, the back of her head. She's never been one for hand-holding, especially not in public, but from to time she finds herself tracing the small scars on his knuckles with her fingertips. Some of them she knows how they got they got there, some of them not. That's just a part of the beauty of life. There are still things that Sawyer doesn't know about her and vice versa, and it will probably always be that way. They share everything important anyway, everything that really matters.

The warm weight of his hand on her shoulder and the presence behind it both shakes Kate's world and steadies it. In turn, Sawyer has been both a source of intense confusion and distress, and contentment for her. He was the first person to tell her he loved her for who she is, really. Excluding her mother whose love turned out not to be worth much anyway. Listening to Sawyer breathe now, Kate wonders if she'd done things differently years ago, if things would have ended up anything like this. Although terrible things had happened to so many people, a small selfish part of her was glad that the story had played out in this way. At least she had Sawyer. She still grieved for Jack, Jin, Sun, Juliet and all the people who hadn't been as fortunate as her. It hadn't been easy in the beginning. Both she and Sawyer were loners by nature, even if both of them subconsciously longed to find somewhere to belong. It took some time, but eventually they drifted back together.

Kate's green eyes crinkle in amusement as she gently smacks Sawyer's hand away from the cake batter. He protests with another of his witty comments, before squeezing her shoulder where his right hand still rests. Kate's gaze follows him as he moves away, moving towards the bedroom. He doesn't usually take the night shift, but his helpful streak made an appearance when a fellow security guard needed the night off.

Sawyer is snoring softly when Kate peeks at him several hours later. The cake is done, cooled and safely stored away in a tin. Kate feels slightly guilty at the hours she's wasted today; at least she has work tomorrow to keep her busy. Shrugging, she sheds her clothes quickly, leaving them in a heap on the floor. Sawyer grunts as her weight jostles the mattress and opens his eyes a crack to watch sleepily as she crawls towards him. With a sigh, she settles against him and nestles into his warmth. His arm encircles her and tightens around her waist. With another long exhale that could have come from either of them they gradually drift to sleep, locked together in their embrace, leaving the rest of the world behind, beyond the duvet, outside the closed curtains, where it can no longer reach them. This is all that matters.

* * *

**Please let me know what you think :)**


End file.
